A view from the daily death watch

I’m standing in the noman’s land between the historic Hall of the House of Representatives, with its carved walnut paneling, the ornate stenciling, and the House Democrats’ stained-glass inner sanctum, where all the ... ahem ... magic has been taking place.

A couple dozen highprofile lobbyists have finally showed up in the State Capitol hallway, dutifully standing behind the velvet ropes as the lawmakers navigate a gantlet of special interests on the walk of shame to their caucus room.

Those in the actual know take positions outside the second-floor lavatories, because when lawmakers emerge from those water closets — as opposed to the caucus rooms — their hands are as clean as they’ll ever be.

The very presence of the lobbyists after two solid weeks of closed-door talks among House and Senate leaders, is eerily reminiscent of vultures circling a parkway roadkill. The day before, when it looked as if there would never be what they’re calling “a tentative deal,” the lobbyists weren’t here to witness my request of a Capitol Police officer to hit me with a blast of pepper spray, just so I could have something to do in the never-ending stakeout.

It’s been a daily death watch, in which the halls outside the House Democrats’ sanctum were taken up by a cadre of bored TV photographers, their on-air talent and the bitter print reporters who have been parsing every pleasant generality, parrying every cryptic answer and challenging the endless banalities of the seemingly bipartisan effort to find a compromise $41-billion budget for the two years that began way back on July 1. Behind the stained glass, Republican and Democratic leaders shared two tables, pushed together to create a bigger, square work space, as they, their staffs and the never-resting nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis kept negotiations alive.

We’ve been monitoring the barometric pressure emitted by House Minority Leader Themis Klarides; the football-coach body language of Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz. We’ve been watching the progress of Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano’s head cold; noting Senate President Pro Tempore Marty Looney’s recovery from the hip replacement; cataloging House Majority Leader Matt Ritter’s poker face.

Finally, the leaders emerged at almost the appointed time to pronounce the tentative deal that may or may not be. It was after 3 p.m. on Wednesday and the microphone stand and Aresimowicz, a Democrat who coaches the high school football team in his Berlin district, said “the major issues” have been agreed upon. “But we are in a very good place. We’re confident that we can come to a budget document that can be voted on in the near future.”

Day one and they declined to give more than broad-brush details, because the leaders — especially the fragile Democrats, who watched three in the Senate and five in the House vote last month for the Republican budget that Gov. Dan Malloy vetoed — wanted to take the compromise to their caucuses before releasing details.

By the next day, more and more pieces of the plan began to emerge: the 45cent hike on cigarette packs; the $130-million cut to UConn; the cap on annual spending increases that will take huge majorities to get on the statewide ballot next year as a constitutional amendment.

The crowd that drifted into the Republican caucus room Thursday looked aggressive, stone-faced. A freshman representative from Wallingford named Craig Fishbein, who had something to say about nearly every bill in committee and on the House floor this year, looked like he was out for blood as he strode in for the briefing from Klarides, R-Derby.

An hour later, a short circuit in a basement computer room was detected and the fire alarm went off. It was a beautiful day and all of a sudden, a couple hundred Capitol workers, lawmakers and media types were outside on the Capitol lawn. Three Hartford fire engines appeared and the crowd entertained themselves by talking, and talking, as firefighters with axes walked into the Capitol.

The weirdest sight on the lawn had to be Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, who needs a cool $40 million to keep his city out of bankruptcy, exchanging pleasantries with GOP Rep. Sam Belsito, a Tolland tux purveyor who is the lawmaker most likely to vote against any given legislation.

After her caucus, Klarides and Republican committee leaders were the first to respond to the details that reporters had ferreted out in the first 24 hours after the initial announcement. At some point they said that in the second year of the budget, local car taxes would be phased out totally. That means the $800 million or so collected each year would likely have to be made up in higher real estate taxes and therefore higher rents. It kind of made Malloy’s plan to force $400 million in teacher pension payments on the towns and cities, look like loose change.

By Friday, Malloy still hadn’t seen an actual budget and the end of the state’s historic budget impasse may or may not be in sight. It depends how many Republicans and Democrats can be wrangled by their leaders.

When it looked as if there would never be what they’re calling “a tentative deal,” the lobbyists weren’t here to witness my request of a Capitol Police officer to hit me with a blast of pepper spray, just so I could have something to do in the never-ending stakeout.